Pâte Brisée
French for "broken dough" or "broken pastry". This is the easiest of the French pastries. Using cold butter is important. This is an extremely versatile, flaky, delicious dough that whips up in about five minutes.
Equipment
- pastry scraper
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 Tbs sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter cold, cubed
- 3 Tbs ice cold water
Instructions
- On a clean work surface, mound the flour in a little pile.
- Add the sugar and the salt. Stir into the flour and reform the mound.
- Place the cold butter cubes in the mound and begin squishing the butter cubes between your thumb and forefinger.
- While you're squishing the butter, rub it in the flour mixture a little, so it starts to incorporate into the dry ingredients.
- When the flour and butter have combined in what I can best describe is a flattened-butter grainy mess, use a pastry scraper to move it back into a mound formation.
- Form a well in the middle of the mound.
- Spoon 3 tablespoons cold water into the well. Pinch small amounts of flour/butter mixture into the water and work with your fingers to make a paste, while not letting it pour it out of the well.
- When the water is stable (pasty and thick) use your hands to work it into the flour/butter mixture. When it starts to clump, form it into a disk.
- Wrap the disk in a piece of plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour before rolling out. You can refrigerate this dough for three days, or freeze it for three months.
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